Director of the Chamber of Entrepreneurs of Aktobe region Nurlybek Mukanov shared details of the work of the Regional Chamber

- Nurlybek Bekbolatovich, tell us about the peculiarities of business in your region?

 - The Aktobe region is an industrial-innovative region. About 40% of GDP is made up of manufacturing industry. We have about 50 thousand business entities, 39% are engaged in trade, 36% other types of services, 10% - agriculture, transport logistics. In the sphere of agro-industrial complex there are about 5 thousand entrepreneurs, it is a farmer, a peasant farm, those who are engaged in processing. When people come with entrepreneurial initiatives, we try our best to help in the realization of his business. Joint efforts of the Centers for Servicing Entrepreneurs, non-financial support measures helped to open more than 300 new enterprises, such as SP, LLP, peasant farming and others.

- Tools for non-financial business support provided by the RCE are always in demand. What services are most often used by entrepreneurs?

 - When non-financial support measures were provided through local executive bodies in 2013, 275 entrepreneurs received services. To date, this number has grown by more than 12 times. According to the results of 10 months of 2017, 3,700 entrepreneurs were provided with these types of services. Legal, marketing services, writing business plans, compliance of financial models are demand. Also the maintenance of accounting, statistic reporting and other documentation.

- One of the directions of Atameken's work is the development of entrepreneurship, how is the training process going?

We have projects "Business School", "Business Communications", "Senior Seniors". Provided project training, business growth, business advisor. The Bastau Business project is implemented in 6 districts out of 12. Currently, about 160 projects have received funding. Basically - it's livestock, including dairy processing, rendering services in the light industry, that is, ateliers, shops. Since the beginning of the year, about 1600 people have been trained in all programs. They are trained and receive a certificate, then go to the financial institutions. For 10 months we helped in obtaining financing for the implementation of projects for a total of about 3 billion tenge. Assistance was provided in different directions. For example, someone was helped with writing a business plan, marketing analysis, with paperwork, someone was assisted in matters with commissions, some were assisted in subsidizing.

- What do you think is the peculiarity of Atameken's activity?

 - The main feature of the Chamber is that we provide comprehensive services. When an entrepreneur appeals to the state agency on land issues, they only consider the issue of land, then he must go to another state agency for construction and architecture. When an entrepreneur comes to us, he can get an answer to the whole range of questions in one place. Let's say he needs land - we immediately accept the application, we send it to the city akimat where the auction is held. Further, there is a development of design and estimate documentation, all these things go through us. We are also notified of the beginning of construction, when we have already built, we are registering the act of commissioning. We help to fill the statistic reporting. About 47 entrepreneurs for the third consecutive year on an ongoing basis turn to us for the introduction of the accounting report.

- What are the terms of consideration of the appeals of entrepreneurs?

- Over 4 years of the existence of RCE, we received about 1,000 written appeals concerning business protection. Only this year there were 290 questions, 50% of them have been resolved positively, the rest are given substantive consultations. We raise all normative legal acts, give them specific instructions or recommendations, 20-30% of appeals are  of explanatory nature. Most often come questions regarding land, architecture. In second place - in relation to the State Revenue Department, the issues of taxation. One questions sometimes takes a week or several months to solve. Of course, we try to keep within the shortest possible time.

- How are business issues resolved in the line of business protection?

 - We have a Council for the Protection of the Rights of Entrepreneurs, including the deputy akim of the region, representatives of the State Revenue Department, the prosecutor's office and other authorized bodies. This Council raises all the problematic issues. The second point, we created a club of lawyers, which attracts practicing lawyers. When an appeal comes, according to the content of the letter - if someone has such practice, we work out concrete ways of solving the line of defense.

This helps a lot, allows you to shorten the time for consideration of complaints. Since in the morning they may be concerned with the issue of subsidizing in the sphere of the agro-industrial complex, after lunch there may be a statement regarding improper fines, among which customs can come. Representatives of RCE participate in the courts, we participated in 54 trials, 23 of them defended the business. Only this year, we protected the property rights of entrepreneurs in the amount of 857 million tenge. Appeals in the field of business protection are growing by about 20-30%.

 - Tell us, which of the cases mentioned above was remembered more?

- One example - at the end of last year there was a question with the railway station. There are small boutiques that businesses rent and trade with various first essential things for passengers. They were told that in a month the contract would be terminated, but there was no warning and no notice. They wrote to us, we contacted the management of the station, involved the transport prosecutor's office, the supervision service, and sorted out the situation. As a result, entrepreneurs have remained in their places.

- What is the interest of the young generation in business in the region?

- There is an indisputable interest of young people. When we run the course "Business School", we notice that the age structure is very different. Young people are interested in modern business, in the field of IT technology, providing services, franchises. Most often these are those types of services that are popular among young people, that is, advertising agencies, marketing companies. Business also began to prevail among the girls, they prefer to open a business in the beauty industry.

- Thank you for the interview!